I literally do blame the Democrats for Trump, and if you don’t, you weren’t paying attention.
Plenty of us were critiquing Clinton’s campaign on those merits and were consistently talked down to in shocker the same way we’re being talked down to now. Shocker, she lost. I remember saying a few weeks before the election “We’re about to get Brexited.” I put my vote down for Clinton, because Trump is fucking insane, and that was clear before he was President. It was clear in the fucking 1980’s.
Being able to critique our leaders is supposed to be what is the difference between us and conservative voters. They’re the cult who unquestioningly believes all the bullshit that comes out of Trump’s mouth and diapers. I find it weird that people think we should be more like them in regards to our leaders like that would be a good thing.
Okay. Blame them all you want, just don’t stay home on Election Day. VOTE against Donald Trump as he’s the more immediate problem, then we demand voting reform…
No.
You sound like a reasonable member of society…
When self proclaimed “reasonable” people insist the only way to protect democracy is to act like it’s broken I don’t think that measure is useful. If you want to claim democracy is worth defending then I should be able to exercise the benefits of that democracy. But if you’re telling me I’m a bad person for doing that I have to ask you, a “reasonable” member of society, what benefit is democracy serving?
I mean, my post is only entirely about people who immediately make such an assumption simply because I’m bothering to criqitue.
Why don’t you get your head out of your ass and ask me, or check any number of numerous comments in here where I said I’m voting for Democrats because I literally don’t have a choice.
But sure, all you fucking idiots coming in here and saying this shit fifty times isn’t exactly what I’m talking about.
What if Dems gave us something to vote FOR instead. What a world that would be.
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The Democrats run “centrist” right-lite candidates with crappy campaigns.
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Not voting for the Democrat candidate lets the much worse Republican in.
Two things can be true at the same time.
Okay… You’re going to have to do more to convince. I agree both of those things are true. I don’t want Biden to be the president for another 4 years because I think he’s bad for the country in other ways than Trump and he’s CURRENTLY ENABLING A GENOCIDE. But sure. Dems shouldn’t have to earn our votes. Blue no matter who. Even if their pro-life, pro-genocide, and pro taking corporate money.
So you prefer the other guy?
I prefer Biden to get out of the race so someone who doesn’t support genocide can step in and beat Trump. But apparently that option doesn’t exist in the sick, twisted little testicle you call a brain.
Wow you seem nice. Seems a shame to block you.
Oh no! I’m sure I’ll miss your inane false dichotomy,
No, that option doesn’t exist in reality.
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instead
How does that conflict with what I said? Are you holding your vote hostage until the Party is perfect…?
I mean, I do intend to withhold my vote from democrats who do not share my values, as should anyone who does not feel that democrats, or a specific democrat, represents their interests in government.
But what I was getting at is that for the last several elections democrats have asked voters to come out to stop the other guys from winning. And if all you care is make sure that things don’t get worse, then by all means vote for democrats. But they haven’t made things better. And that’s not even what their offering you. They are offering you exactly what you have right now. And I get it, no one wants the other guy to win, but that doesn’t motivate people as much as Dems want it to. If they were instead laying out progressive policy platforms, maybe people would be excited to vote for them. Then people like me, who are not represented by democrats but its as close as it gets I guess, might be able to stomach voting for them or at least not negatively impact their chances of winning.
You catch more flies with honey, as they say.
People attribute a lot more competence to the DNC then they’ve really demonstrated.
Like yeah HRC might have legitimately thought that way about Trump, but if her own campaigning didn’t win the election for herself suggesting it’s what put Trump over the finish line or even that it was of any significant contribution is pretty disingenuous.
Not to mention how the DNC and HRC aren’t able to mind control voters, like 99% of attempts to make Trump into the DNC boogeyman’s fault ignore the choice voters made to vote for him or to just not vote for Clinton, and the “shoved Clinton down our throats” narrative is pretty racist since it basically casts Clinton’s primary win through significant support by the black and poc vote as illegitimate.
We almost had a double down on that shit in 2020 but the “low information voter” dog whistlers just decided to blame everything on Clyburn this time.
I mean, I wouldn’t really say my critique is that they’re “competent.” Hubris does not imply competence.
I would say elevating someone like Trump because you think it’s an easy win falls under “incompetent.”
Clinton isn’t the only reason he won, but acting like her campaign didn’t have an impact on Trump, and that her campaign centering him isn’t also part of why he ended up the nominee is acting like she never had any influence or impact at all, is also not true.
Clinton’s campaign literally had press access and so to act like her campaign didn’t influence what the media discussed is also brazenly ignoring what happened. Did she make Trump President? No. Did she give him way more opportunity to win than he would have had otherwise? Yes.
You don’t have to be competent for that.
Ehhhh, attributing the boatload of free coverage trump racked up as the result of the Clinton campaign seems a little silly.
Every network ran trump coverage because it was ratings gold. I remember many non political friends who couldn’t wait to watch the debates for the sheer idiocy.
I’d say it’s true to say that Clinton wanted to elevate trump. But it also seems ludicrous to suggest the only reason he got through the republican primaries was because of Clinton’s deep and friendly contacts in the right wing traditional and social media wings. (Just imagine the poor Clinton staffer calling up Breitbart.)
Edit: Just look at the list of press contacts. Do you think any Republican primary voters were waiting on Rachel Maddow or Ronan Farrow’s opinion?!?
Did she make Trump President? No. Did she give him way more opportunity to win than he would have had otherwise? Yes.
Did she make Trump President? No. Did she give him way more opportunity to win than he would have had otherwise? Yes.
But it also seems ludicrous to suggest the only reason he got through the republican primaries was because of Clinton’s deep and friendly contacts in the right wing traditional and social media wings.
Yeah it’s really easy to argue when you just make up shit and don’t actually listen to what the other person said. I literally didn’t fucking argue that, chucklefuck.
This kind of response is literally why I made this post. Because it doesn’t matter what we say you people will argue with a fucking strawman anyway.
Calm down kid.
I literally didn’t fucking argue that, chucklefuck.
but acting like her campaign didn’t have an impact on Trump, and that her campaign centering him isn’t also part of why he ended up the nominee is acting like she never had any influence or impact at all, is also not true.
Arguing that Clinton’s campaign is a large part of why he ended up the nominee is a little silly.
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If it wasn’t a large part, it’s pretty silly to get worked up about it, isn’t it?
I’m more worked up because you’re misrepresenting what I said. You don’t think that plays into it?
You’ve already called me “kid” even though I’m almost fifty, and you’re trying to act like my cares are silly and immature. You clearly care enough to try to minimize the idea but not enough to give a valid critique that isn’t a strawman.
But sure, it’s silly to get worked up about politics! /s Get fucked, asswipe. Try arguing in good faith.
The irony is, this would have worked if she wasn’t Hillary
The real irony is she actually won, but because of poor campaigning, lost three major Democratic strongholds in the EC vote.
We just don’t pay attention to the popular vote here in the US.
In this thread:
People reminding the rest of us how much they don’t remember shit. Also in this thread: See how propaganda works! More at 11.
I blame the progressive who call everything they don’t agree with racist and who don’t understand there is a center that they can just force left.
We’ll turn Texas blue might have been peak.
Ah, yes, the fallacy where the Republicans are the de facto winners and the election is only up to what the Democrats do.
I mean, yeah, they ran a mediocre campaign, but there is a difference between “critiquing our leaders” and literally campaigning against them, and leftist in general have a hard, hard, HARD time with that one. Critique is for when you’re in power. You analize, you apply your newfound political power to create pressure, you postmortem what went wrong. Campaigns are for winning.
And every year we’re told it’s “not the time to critique the Democrats” because its “too close to an election.”
Dude, I’m pushing fucking fifty and this has been every year of my fucking life with this “this is not the time for critique” shit. When is gonna be a good time to critique them? Because it sure fucking feels like the argument is never or this wouldn’t have been going on since fucking Bill Clinton left the Presidency.
After an election seems like a good time to discuss what to do differently next time.
Post 2016 I was absolutely berated for thinking to critique what went wrong but sure I don’t remember what happened what is this gaslighting shit.
On reddit or something? I remember a fair bit of political reporting and opinion articles discussing how badly the Clinton campaign fucked up. You have a fair point that someone could have said this before she didn’t bother to go to Michigan and so on. Talking campaign strategy before it’s too late makes sense.
Sounds false
??
This wasn’t even the political climate during the 2016 election. It wasn’t the political climate immediately after clinton
In fact I remember people being VERY harsh on democrats during the 2016 election.
And I remember being shat on for having those opinions? Sorry?
Again, by whom? I could say the same thing in different communities and some people would love it and others be enraged. I mean, criticize Trump in a conservative reddit sub in 2016 and you’d get instantly banned with a vulgar message from the mod.
MetaFilter is actually where a lot of DC DNC members have accounts and have for a long time. It’s one of the places where you can get a good eye on actual professionals and what they’re thinking.
This has been a problem on MeFi forever and continues to be, just check out thread on Jeff Sharlet’s book The Undertow. Half of it is about how Chris Hedges must be a Russian shill, despite the same people loving Hedges during the Bush administration.
https://www.metafilter.com/202246/A-slow-civil-war
So yeah, people who actually work for the DNC at the national level, that’s who. Along with every shitty redditor in every halfway political sub. And just peruse this thread (gestures wildly) for current examples, thanks.
…If they’re a DNC heavy site, then go to a normal site. Even reddit is going to be more normal. It’d be like going to truth.social and trying to argue anything about Trump.
I’ve never heard of metafilter in all my life.
But I still checked the articles in 2016 (it has an archive) and it was definitely not the discussions we’re having now.
edit: I don’t see anything like that in the 2000 elections for bush either.
Knowing how MeFi works, I have a hard time believing you read all the political threads post-2000, post-2008 and post-2016 already. They’re not neatly threaded like here, and many of them are hundreds of comments long, but sure, you “don’t see any.”
What you’re more likely to see is a message from a MeFi admin “a couple comments removed” while usually leaving the stuff that impugns progressives in the thread, removing any pushback or discussion of pushback.
I’m literally on Lemmy right now, one of the most leftist sites on the internet, and I’m still dealing with this bullshit right now.
So I don’t know where else you want me to go where I’m not overrun with it?
People are always heated for political discussions, but that was not the discussion back then.
It was literally the first election I voted in. It was mostly people making fun of trump/hillary. It was definitely not a “not the time” kindof discussion. The bleak discussion currently going on is semi-recent.
Okay, let’s break it down.
How about first half of the Trump presidency, when the Democrats needed to regroup, take stock of just how badly they screwed up and plan how to never do that again? I’d say that was a good time.
How about the first half of the Biden presidency, when the Democrats could actually pass legislation and position themselves to brand the nature of their term? That was a good time. Happy to engage then.
I know it sucks to not have an alternative. I get it. But going after the only side that is even vaguely functional because you think you’re holding “your guys” to account is not one of the set of options you have at the moment. Spend those good times to debate lobbying for deep, profound reform that unlocks the political system for more varied options, as opposed to making every election an existential choice between actual, explicit fascism and literally anything else.
Until you do that, these are your choices. Not liking the choices doesn’t change that fact.
How about first half of the Trump presidency, when the Democrats needed to regroup, take stock of just how badly they screwed up and plan how to never do that again? I’d say that was a good time.
That’s funny, because I was berated by people online for critiquing them at the time, too. Especially critiquing Clinton, how badly she ran her campaign, and how they had destroyed goodwill of progressives by putting their finger on the scale for Clinton. Sanders is a class act, and that’s why he stood behind Clinton.
Sorry, but I was still being assaulted with “BERNIE BRO!!!” during this time period, so you can take this perspective and shove it.
It really would have been a great time for the party to consider what happened, but they were busy doubling down on it being the voters fault and doing anything they could to shift blame away from their own mistakes. They were literally arguing in court it was their right to go in back rooms to smoke cigars to choose the candidate… come on…
Literally I have been talked down to every year of my adult life about this, because every year its too close to a mid-term election or a Presidential election.
So you still didn’t really address the elephant in the room which is progressives are never actually allowed to critique the party.
Your claims aren’t believable
Man youre fucking triggered, huh?
THIS. I feel this. If I could super-upvote, I would. The same argument is deployed towards anyone voting 3rd party. The argument that ranked choice voting is the solution to a lot of problems, is valid. But we are never going to get that either so long as we keep diligently voting for the less evil between two parties. Seems like “never” is the answer to the question of when a lot of imperative, necessary, vital change is going to happen.
Given this dynamic, I can understand how anyone who has been paying attention, becomes disillusioned with our system and votes immorally just to encourage some change, even if it’s making things worse. I don’t condone it, but I see it happening and I can understand why
I’ll keep this advice in mind as I ponder what possible situation I could be in where it would be beneficial to know. Maybe if I decide to run for president?
Yes!
Next up; How I spilled my Pepsi and why I blame coke.
didn’t she also illegally sabotage Bernie?
The primaries were rigged against Bernie so the insider’s pick would be on the democratic ticket, yes
But unfortunately, not illegal because they’re a private club, so they can make their own rules.
They literally argued in court it was legal for them to just smoke cigars in back rooms and choose the candidate, and that we should be happy that we even get sham proceedings.
They didn’t argue that they didn’t tip the scales for Clinton in court because discovery would have shown that wasn’t true.
If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; if you have the law on your side, pound the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table.
They couldn’t pound the facts so they pounded the law.
I mean, that’s fair and I’m fine with their right to do whatever they want in their club
It’s bullshit that I’m ‘part of the problem’ when I want nothing to do with them
Well, to be fair, man. I don’t think you’re part of the problem if you’re not voting for Trump and Republicans.
If you want to vote third party, you do you. We could argue policy of your choice party, but I’m not going to tell you that you’re wrong or part of the problem for being done with being bullied by Democrats.
Because it is bullying to hang fascism over our heads like a threat. “Better vote for us, or you’ll get even worse!”
Hell I’m still gonna vote for Biden I guess. Even though my county will go 60/70% blue and my state 60/70% red no matter what so I might as well sit on the couch
Someday we’ll be able to tell these old guard 90’s dems to eat it. They’ll die soon enough anyway
I wish I could promote your response here to the whole fucking world, because I think it speaks loudly of the very issue we’re discussing.
Hell I’m still gonna vote for Biden I guess
Notice how much easier it was to say that when someone was being considerate of your opinion and not bullying you into submission to vote for Biden? Like this is what all the people in this thread are fucking missing.
We want Republicans to lose and we’re willing to suck it up and vote for a Democrat to make that happen, but if you’re abusive to us on the internet about it, guess what, we’re unlikely to respond well to that.
Shocking, people don’t like being bullied and when you’re nice to them, you suddenly get what you’re looking for. A lot of these people could learn a lot from this single interaction between two people who spoke to each other respectfully.
I think you’re pretty cool, GreatCornholio, and thanks for helping prove what I already felt: A lot of us would be less pissy about the whole Biden thing if we weren’t being fucking bullied so hard about it.
I mean it’s fine to critique the DNC as long as we don’t ignore the current political climate. We had an insurrection, confidential documents were stolen, spies were killed.
That president worked with his party to get several justices who have caused a divisive climate over abortion, which has had several state upsets due to it being more unpopular than initially believed.
The President responsible for this is currently buried in court cases. He is the presumed frontrunner for his party despite everything listed. The most likely reason he wants it above his dictatorial speeches is that he wants a pardon for everything he’s done up until now. That at the end of the day is the problem that nothing else can really beat out, but if we really had to add anything, it’s that he hasn’t even shown to be opposed to any of the things that are negatively affecting the current President.
Like I didn’t think he was a great President, but it’s pretty much everything he did going out the door that made it clear he shouldn’t come back. For all of DNCs issues, it was absolutely the republican party at the end of the day that made the situation we have today. The DNC was just incompetent to do anything about it.
I think the general issue with a lot of anti-DNC posts lately is that they come off as “We will vote for a party that doesn’t win on any level of government, just to show our opinion”
Which…seems to ignore that one party is trying to erode voting rights, which would make it hard to fix these issues long-term, and assumes that DNC would take it they lost votes to a third party…which lets be real here, if you already think they don’t pay attention, they won’t when you do that. It also comes off as a bit insincere, since if you truly are against the DNC…you should be trying to build the 3rd parties enough to actually win in some states, before trying to take on the presidency…I there probably aren’t even enough states that know who the third parties are to possibly get them elected at this time.
So yeah, mainly my problem with a lot of anti-DNC posts isn’t so much they make the democrats to be incompetent. They honestly are. It’s that they seem to ignore the the domestic threats coming from the other party, and bury into some completely unrealistic goals currently.
And yes, I will just say it: We have failed as a civilization. No actions will prevent another genocide in the current political climate. It is supported bipartisan. It is literally one of the only things supported bipartisan.
I think you’re confusing a tremendous amount of distrust for HRC instead of the DNC. Yeah, the DNC is ultimately responsible, but now that HRC’s out of the picture, they seem to be behaving.
I think the general issue with a lot of anti-DNC posts lately is that they come off as “We will vote for a party that doesn’t win on any level of government, just to show our opinion”
I think this is mostly a valid critique, but this is the part I take issue with, and why I made this post to begin with.
That we plan on not voting for Democrats seems to be the automatic assumption of anyone regarding these posts. I even agree, some of these posts come off as pretty lame and like they intend to withhold their vote. Especially when a post gets removed and they move to another instance to post the same post again. That’s just spammy and abusive and doesn’t speak to a good faith argument, so I agree, some of the people with these opinions are absolutely shitty. I’m just tired of being a target because other people are shitty.
Why not find out what people’s plans for voting are by asking them instead of making crass assumptions and gross conspiratorial comments like “Da, daddy Putin!” that come off as just as wildly unhinged as Trumpers, assuming everyone who disagrees with them is a Russian plant. It’s fucking pathetic and I see more comments like that than thoughtful ones like yours.
Anyway, thanks for a thoughtful and well considered reply.
This is ignoring the iceberg that sunk the titanic and focusing on the shoes of the lookout man for being too comfortable so the guy wasn’t as uninsurable aware as you think he should have been.
“I literally do blame the lookout guy’s shoes for the boat sinking, and if you don’t, you aren’t paying attention”
Actually it’s a lot more like if the lookout told the captain that he saw an iceberg and the captain was like “You know, I think we’ll do better if we just get a little closer to it first…”
Critiquing Democrats is not an endorsement of Republicans
OK.
Just be aware that doing so publicly, especially around election time, increases the probability of Republicans getting elected. So ask yourself if its the right time and place - regardless of what your intentions are, what sort of effects will your actions actually cause in the world?IMO, the best time and place to make your opinion on Democratic policy known is the Democratic primary election and who you choose to help campaign for the primaries.
During the democratic primary? So… like, right freaking now?
How many decades now have democrats been 3 steps less right than Republicans running on nothing but “We’re not Republicans?”
They’ve had plenty of time to get it together but instead they slither further and further right to sate “centrists” (that were never going to vote dem anyway.) Meanwhile, everybody shrieks that dems are the only line between us and fascism as they fascism all over their voters at the dnc and Biden sidesteps congress to fund genocide.
Sounds fascist to me. 🤷
Your solution?
IMO, the best time and place to make your opinion on Democratic policy known is the Democratic primary election and who you choose to help campaign for the primaries
No, because Superdelegates. It’s not a real vote if the party apparatus can force the result they want by blunting a challenger’s momentum/stopping their win.
Besides, airing complaints at the primary only gets them heard by the hyper-engaged of the electorate. I.e. not your typical voter. “Go vote in the primary” is the correct messages, yes. But you’ll never be heard by a bigger crowd who might agree and also agitate for change(s).
As I pointed out to someone else: So valid critiques of the Democrats are what depress and demotivate voters, not… *checks notes… the things that the Democrats failed at themselves? No, it only rises to upsetting people when people talk about it. Do you realize that’s what you’re arguing here, that Democratic failures don’t demotivate people, only people talking about them.
I’m sorry but I’m pretty sure the failures are demotivating on their own, and folks like me are demotivated by being told we’re not allowed to talk about them.
Also, we have elections every two years. My entire life, I’ve been told it’s “too close to an election to for that kind of critique.”
As I asked others (with no good answers) when are we going to be allowed to critique them, then? Because I’m pushing fifty and I’ve dealt with this bullshit “you can’t critique them NOW” for over twenty fucking years of voting.
Way to take a valid point and reject the fuck out of it.
woosh
Hey just so we’re clear you do realise the primaries are right now? So in your own words this is exactly the time to be critiquing.
and the progressive replacement candidate that you’re all campaigning for is definitely real and an obvious choice. that’s why you’re all campaigning for us to vote for them instead in our totally not cancelled primaries precisely because there has been no such challenger in time and definitely not just relitigating old mistakes and common criticisms of the incumbent candidate.
oh wait.
Right, and we’ve immediately circled back to ‘there is no time where it is appropriate to criticize the presumed candidate.’
I’m sure the DNC saying they wouldn’t hold primary debates a week before Biden announced he planned to seek re-election didn’t have anything to do with no one running against him. I’m sure all the one-term president talk we got to make us step in line back in 2020 didn’t set up any expectation we might have a voice in who we ran in 2024. I’m sure you wouldn’t be trotting out the exact same garbage even if someone serious was running against him.
Oh wait.
I think you might be the woosh since you don’t think actions demotivate people, only people talking about those things.
Also, assumptions that we don’t take part in the process has been going on for over twenty years as well. But I guess you don’t give a shit enough to find out if I’m actually involved, do you? Easier to just assume I’m not, right? Than to have to actually engage with the point?
I literally do blame the Democrats for Trump, and if you don’t, you weren’t paying attention.
Barack Obama had the opportunity to become the next FDR. Instead, we got a modern day Woodrow Wilson, more interested in shoring up domestic businesses and building out international military alliances than repairing the post-'08 damage to the housing economy or extending full public health benefits to a nation crippled by medical bankruptcies.
By the time he left office, he was running on… what? A Pacific Rim trade deal we didn’t need. A climate change crisis he’d failed to address. A slew of new military conflicts in the Middle East introduced under his administration that he’d originally promised to end. A federal court system he’d allowed his Senate rivals to hijack.
Hillary sucked. But far too little credit is afforded to the guy who had eight years to deliver on desperately needed federal reforms and - either through incompetence or unwillingness - failed to do so.
“But but the filibuster”
Dude had 60 senators for two years.
Okay, look it up. He did NOT. He had that many for slightly over two MONTHS and Congress used that time to just barely get sweeping healthcare reform passed.
sweeping healthcare reform
RomneyCare is not sweeping healthcare reform, especially when it doesn’t include a public option (although to be fair we can blame the loss of Public Option on Joe Lieberman).
People are still going bankrupt from medical bills and dying because they can’t afford treatment. So much for “sweeping reform.”
You must be very young to not remember what it was like prior to the ACA. You could pay for insurance for years and get denied treatment for “pre-existing conditions”. They could literally cut you off as soon as you got cancer.
And many of the people dying now are in Republican states that didn’t expand Medicaid. The ACA gives free money to help poorer Americans, but Republicans refuse to take it. That’s clearly not Obama’s fault.
I’m pushing fifty, jackass.
I’m literally constantly on the verge of not being able to afford my cancer meds and will then just die if I can’t get them.
I live in a solidly blue state.
Go on, tell me more about how my lived experience is wrong. I’ve had fellow Democratic voters shoving that shit up my ass for my entire voting life.
Then you probably remember how badly healthcare blew up in the Clinton’s face back in 1993.
The ACA, for better or worse, was strongly shaped by that experience. Obama’s biggest lessons from that debacle were 1) don’t threaten the insurance industry and 2) don’t threaten union- bargained “cadillac” plans.
The ACA was designed to not die the same way Hillarycare did. It’s a worse law because of it, but importantly: it passed.
It passed and more people got access to health insurance. Plenty of them still don’t have access to healthcare.
In my view, these half-measures are why Democrats never have much real energy behind them, because nobody gets excited for half-measures or using Republican plans just to be able to make deals with Republicans.
It was sweeping reform. Just because we are far from having something good doesn’t mean this wasn’t sweeping reform that fixed some huge problems.
The Dems in Congress had an asshole preventing them from doing more but they went as far as they could go, they wanted to go farther, but they moved things forward, not just rhetorically but legally. And it was something people had tried and failed to do at all for decades. Because some of the things that were addressed are off the table, the conversation moved towards going further in the right direction, instead of spinning in circles with the same conversations we were having in the 90s.
I see too many people on Lemmy who say this stuff about how the Democrats had a supermajority and sat around, and they are wrong on the time they had and they are wrong on the facts of how they used their time. I don’t know if it’s because they were too young to follow it at the time, they’ve completely forgotten, or they are intentionally skewing the facts to suit an agenda. But I’m so tired of seeing it.
I see too many people on Lemmy who say this stuff about how the Democrats had a supermajority and sat around, and they are wrong on the time they had and they are wrong on the facts of how they used their time.
100%…people also forget that the blue dog coalition contained people like Joe Lieberman who would not vote for any bill that contained a public option.
I get that hindsight is 20/20 and really Obama’s coalition likely should’ve just nuked the filibuster…but this was in early 2009. Not everyone knew how unhinged the Republican party would become during Obama’s tenure.
but this was in early 2009. Not everyone knew how unhinged the Republican party would become during Obama’s tenure.
This was 2009. A significant number of people had been describing the GOP as fascists under Dubya.
…and they let the Republicans in committee decide what it should look like.
And then they all happily voted for it while their colleagues voted against it so they could look blameless.
And this keeps getting pitched to me as a win despite the fact that net effect of that “sweeping reform” for me and many others was paying a fine for not buying things we simply couldn’t afford, and when I finally did end up being able to get “Obamacare” “insurance” years after it passed (I’m talking during the Trump admin, my state told me to go pound sand for that long), literally all it did was cap certain types of medical debt from a very, very short list at the roughly the cost of a luxury sedan.
Obamacare was straight up an owngoal and it cracks me up when people try to pitch it as a win for Democrats. It was a win for the Heritage Foundation, who devised the scheme in the first place back in the 90s.
tl;dr the ACA was written by a conservative think-tank and forced in committee by Republicans, when they literally did not have to give that much power to the minority party it was done by choice knowing full well they don’t compromise. And a Democratic supermajority passed it and sold it to you as a win.
tl;dr the ACA was written by a conservative think-tank and forced in committee by Republicans, when they literally did not have to give that much power to the minority party it was done by choice knowing full well they don’t compromise. And a Democratic supermajority passed it and sold it to you as a win.
This is exactly what I’m talking about. You’re replying to a comment where I’m calling out bullshit and I’m sick of bullshit. What you’ve written is factually incorrect, why are you replying with it? What is the point?
The Heritage Foundation did not write the bill. Some concepts, like having a mandate, that were proposed by the Heritage Foundation in the 90s but never went anywhere, were incorporated into the ACA. The Democrats looked seriously at single-payer and it was not going to get the 60 votes — indeed, even the version that passed had to get rid of the public option to do so. The whole way the process happened and the timing of it illustrate that the Democrats didn’t count on any Republican support. It was also not forced into committee by the Republicans.
Do you say these things out of ignorance or malice? I’m sure I’ll never get a real answer, but I’m so sick of it.
i’m sorry your revisionist oversimplified narrative is in conflict with what i literally watched unfold at the time because i was and am an adult who pays attention. Dems gave it away and called it a win. There’s no need to rage at me about it and i have to wonder why you’re the one with an emotional stake in this when i was the one who suffered as a result of that twisted abomination they sold to you as a “reform”.
The Heritage Foundation did not write the bill.
The Heritage Foundation pitched the idea of an insurance mandate in the 80s. Mitt Romney adopted it as the central plant of his Massachusetts health care reform in the 90s. And Obama picked it up as a “compromise” bill that would satisfy both Democrats and Republicans in the '00s.
Compare this to the original idea of Medicare/Medicaid, which was simply public financing of health care, extended to a cohort of people with the lowest incomes and highest liabilities. The component of Obamacare that has been MOST effective - both in terms of lives and dollars saved - has been extending the pool of people covered by Medicaid. The part that he ran on, the part that was central to the bulk of the written legislation, and the part that everyone now hates, is the Heritage Plan for subsidized private insurance mandates.
“Abortion is not my highest legislative priority.” -Obama 2009
To be fair, the federal government has very little ability to change abortion policy outside of the supreme Court interpreting the bill of rights as protecting the bodily autonomy of the mother. A constitutional amendment is the only other way it could be done
They could literally have passed a federal law and had been done with it.
This is literally false
It’s not. The Democrats were just too hindered with propaganda to stand up to the Republicans and take control of Congress and the federal government when they had a chance.
The Republicans are our abusers and the Democrats our chief enablers.
Homie yes it is false, SCOTUS can absolutely tell Congress to go fuck itself over any legislation they choose. They do it frequently, they have nullified tons of Acts passed by Congress in the past.
And as Andrew Jackson proved, we literally can just tell SCOTUS to come down and enforce their rulings themselves if they feel some type of way about it.
And it’s WAY past time the feds started doing that.
Why would they pass a federal law that can be overturned in the next Congress when every incoming justice has claimed under oath that Roe is a constitutional right that cannot be removed?
Hindsight is always 2020
the federal government has very little ability to change abortion policy
They had the votes to pass the legislation that would federally guarantee a woman’s right to an abortion and they choose not to include it.
They had the ability to tie access to legal abortion to federal Medicare/caid funding, and they choose not to do it.
They had the momentum to put a constitutional amendment on state ballots - in much the same way Bush used “traditional family” amendments to put gay marriage legalization on the ballot in 2004 - and they refused.
They have the ability - RIGHT NOW - to pass state laws that will shield women and doctors from interstate prosecutions and they are refusing to do it.
A constitutional amendment is the only other way it could be done
An amendment is certainly one way it could be done. An interstate compact is another. Federal public money and legal protection for physicians is a third way. There are still others. None have been tried. None are being pursued. None appear to be a part of the 2024 election agenda.
SCOTUS can tell Congress to go fuck itself for literally any reason. Passing a law saying abortion cannot be made illegal by a state would have done literally NOTHING to stop Dobbs.
I am so sick of seeing this false rhetoric all over Lemmy, the only thing that would have stopped Dobbs would have been a constitutional amendment.
A law passed by congress would have set an entirely different framework thus eliminating the grounds Dobbs relied on. I am pretty sure the justices were pretty clear in the Dobbs decision itself about that.
SCOTUS can tell Congress to go fuck itself for literally any reason.
Yes. But then that reason sets off a series of dominoes, as it applies to a whole host of outstanding case law. The reason the SCOTUS gives is incredibly important and not something trivially decided.
Passing a law saying abortion cannot be made illegal
Would have overriden a host of state trigger-laws already on the books, forcing the states to re-litigate at the state level and offer liberals ample opportunity to stonewall new legislation in a host of states.
I am so sick of seeing this false rhetoric
Democrats crying that they are powerless while insisting that Republicans are omnipotent is the false rhetoric.
“Government can’t help you, it can only hurt you” is this toxic and corrosive theory that gives license to the worst kind of people to continue doing the most nightmarish things to their neighbors.
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Sure, but for the proceeding seven years FOCA was not touched. It would likely have motivated voters in the last eight too, let alone now. It is almost cynically insulting if it can be brought up again solely as a campaign tool for voter motivation.
Given the state of the economy at the time
Except that he did fuck all about that either. Zero prosecutions just billions in bailouts for failing corporations while people were losing their homes.
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They could have done away with the filibuster with a simple majority.
They didn’t want to.
o7
You have a lot of lofty ideas of what it takes to reverse shit like climate change on an oil addicted economy
Not to mention the whole spying on his citizens PRISM thing happened under his watch.
Spying on citizens is the backbone of the modern government and has been since at least the Palmer Raids of the 1910s.
PRISM gave Obama a golden opportunity to back off the intensive degree of domestic espionage. But, of course, he didn’t. Instead, we spent a few months arguing over the defunding of ACORN.
Critiquing Biden is not an endorsement of trump
Damn if lemmy.world could read, I’d put that on a shirt 🥲
Why did you quote that and then change “democrats” to “Biden”?
Biden had nothing to do with 2016, for better or worse.
There are literally only two options
I’m going to support a third option
A THIRD OPTION IS SUPPORT FOR THE FIRST OPTION!
In primary season it isn’t necessarily and for the presidential election specifically it doesn’t either due to the electoral college.
There are a handful of battleground states and a couple states that do split their electors in some way.
But for everyone else? Their vote is mostly an advisory vote.
There is always the risk of a candidate being so unpopular they actually drive their own party away from voting for them, but that can’t really be on the voters at that point.
You never know* if your state is going to be a swing state until after the election.
* Not literally “never”, CA or NJ aren’t going for Trump, but there are some states that may feel fairly safe that could be up for grabs.
It is not.
Oops, a tankie entered.
What does that word mean to you?
A couple of us can read and are fighting the good fight!
I literally do blame the Democrats for Trump, and if you don’t, you weren’t paying attention.
I wasn’t paying attention?
The structure of government in the US, federal and state, has always been unfairly tilted in favor of “land” over “people.” The electoral college is the most glaring example, but even the concept of giving each state two Senators regardless of population, and then requiring bills to pass the Senate to become law, makes everything that happens in the federal government require the approval of people who have more political power than their number warrants. State governments are organized in the exact same way. The Three-Fifths Compromise did even more, giving slave states far more representation in the House than their free citizens warranted. The power and influence that comes with wealth tips the scales, too - again, in so many places where that wealth was extracted from human bondage and handed over to the slaveowners. Sprinkle some gerrymandering on top of that.
This was all in place well before any well-organized political parties existed in the United States.
The US has always, and by design, been arranged to benefit assholes. Trump and his supporters are just today’s assholes, and nobody else in the world is responsible for that.
A valid critique, thank you.
